PopTalk is a new podcast on PopMatters that casts its gaze on exciting developments in culture and the arts. In this first installment, we examine the 2015 Oscar nominees, and the broken rules of the institution that is the Academy.

In this inaugural edition of PopTalk, a new podcast on PopMatters, Evan Sawdey and Brice Ezell take a look at the controversial slate of Oscar nominations for the 2015 ceremonies. From there, they examine the other problems that occur in large award ceremonies like the Oscars, the Grammys, and the Emmys. Topics include the limited rules for what constitutes a “Best Original Score”, the exclusion of minority artists by predominately white voting blocs, and the refusal of certain award ceremonies to break their predictable trends.

This documentary about a New Jersey "free school" is as adventurous and experimental as its subject.

“I’m not the weak one,” says Lucy. One time, she goes on, she “pinned down a boy.” A student at the Terry McArdle Free School, eight-year-old Lucy is doing her best to establish a place, a voice, and some respect among her fellow students and also her teachers. As Approaching the Elephant, Amanda Rose Wilder’s remarkable new film reveals, this is an ideal fostered at the school, founded by Alex Khost and modeled after the experiment started in Barcelona in 1901, a protest against the “reading, writing, and arithmetic model of education that came from the industrial revolution’s need for factory workers.” The participants at Terry McArdle, students and staff. Work together to craft structure, to discover independence, and to build community.

Blur's big comeback single turns out to be a weird little number that will appeal to only hardcore fans. Thank goodness.

The best part about “Go Out”, the lead single from Blur’s first full-length album in 12 years, is that a lot of people probably won’t like it.

Its side-stepping bassline and timid backbeat set the stage, but “Go Out” is, like all great Blur tracks, all about Damon Albarn’s stretched-out vocal phrasings interacting with Graham Coxon’s lyrical, expressive guitar work. The two collide and build upon each other to reach a climax that isn’t really that much of a climax, typical of the band’s mid- and late-period phases. Albarn finds an obtuse way to speak about isolation, dancing with himself, and then going out to the local (and sometimes, the lo-o-o-cal) on his ownsome, all while Coxon unleashes all the distortion he can out of his cheap pedal before trying to wrestle all of it to the ground in spectacular fashion, our ears caught up more in the struggle than the result. When you get down to it, this is a weird-ass little ditty, and therein lies its charm.

The sarcastic wit of Bomb the Music Industry! meets the catchiness of Green Day in the newest tune by the Boston folk-punk outfit Drunken Logic.

When you hear a poppy punk tune that’s laced with mandolin, you’d be right in guessing that song was probably written in or near Boston. While there’s no scientific way to test that rule, that guess is correct in the case of the Boston folk-punk outfit Drunken Logic. In another tip of the hat to Boston tropes, they’ve titled their new album Long Day’s Journey to the Middle, which has the benefit of referencing both a fine play by Eugene O’Neill and evoking the worn out barroom aesthetic that is so common in the band’s native city.

To get a sense of what’s coming on the album, below you can stream lead single “(The Good News Is) No One Gives a Damn”, an energetic number that should prove perfect in helping shake off the winter doldrums currently plaguing New England.

Los Angeles producer GDNA teams up with beatmaker Jo Def for the airy and synth-led "Reasons".

The Los Angeles-based musician and producer GDNA describes himself as “the melodic apothecary peddling medicine for the melancholic.” You can confirm his alliterate appellation by downloading the track “Reasons”, his collaboration with beatmaker and lyricist Jo Def, which you can do exclusively here at PopMatters. Citing influences such as Flying Lotus and Dwele, The LA Timessays of the tune, “‘Reasons’ is nothing if not of the moment.”